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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24506620">may god thy gold refine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Space, Brainwashing, Dehumanization, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Fascism, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Unreliable Narrator, Xenophobia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24506620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth used to be a good place, that’s what you grow up hearing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>may god thy gold refine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the prompt "Anti-American".</p><p>I’m certain that I’ve tagged this as well as I can, but here’s a broad warning that this story is set in a dystopian fascist future and is being told through the PoV of a character who sees nothing wrong with that and contains all the warnings that implies. Please be cautious when reading if that or any of the tags look like things that may be triggering for you.</p><p>This...was not a very pleasant story to write, but we're not really living in pleasant times. While this wasn't exactly fun to write, it was somewhat cathartic to translate the feelings of anxiety and hopelessness I have about things that have been happening lately into something creative (even if what I created was a dystopian hellscape worse than reality.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>20.</strong>
</p><p>The curve of the sickle wraps around your throat, cold metal caressing turning to digging in turning to jerking you back with force. You choke. Your arms spasm with the need to fight where they’re bound behind your back so tight that you can no longer feel your fingertips. </p><p>The sickle tilts, sharp point digging into your neck right at the vein. Your jaw clenches. Your heartbeat skips. </p><p>On your knees in the dirt, head bent back, neck straining, you struggle to turn and meet your tormentor’s eyes.</p><p>When you do, you swallow hard. </p><p>The sickle’s point digs in, cutting.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>02.</strong>
</p><p>Earth used to be a good place, that’s what you grow up hearing. </p><p>“Back in the day,” your father often says, “the whole world was just as good as it is here, but that was before the war.”</p><p>You live in a shack a stone’s throw away from a crumbling wall that’s still taller than you are no matter how decrepit it is. </p><p>You’re not allowed to venture outside of the wall. No one is. </p><p>“Land is poisoned. Whole damn world is poisoned except for here. Be thankful for that, boy,” your father always tells you – and so you are.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>13.</strong>
</p><p>The promotion that comes with it is an honor, but you’re uneasy about the Ulyanov Mission from the beginning regardless. </p><p>The bad feeling starts with the name of it and grows worse with the man who coined it, the both of them too foreign for your comfort.</p><p>“It’s narcissistic, isn’t it?” you ask Dr. Ulyanov the first time you meet. “Naming a mission like this after yourself?”</p><p>Ulyanov looks at you without smiling. His eyes drop down to the pins on your uniform and drag slowly back up.</p><p>“Narcissism,” he drawls out, accent thick.</p><p>It doesn’t leave a good impression.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>08.</strong>
</p><p>You pledge allegiance every morning then spend hours on drills. You do it again before lunch then sit in a classroom wearing the same uniform as a dozen other boys, learning the history of your country and why it’s the only one left standing in a world that used to have dozens of them.</p><p>If it’s routine – you take comfort in it. </p><p>If it’s grueling – you take pride in surviving.</p><p>You ignore how smoggy the air is and how sometimes it’s hard to breathe.</p><p>You’re thankful to be alive, that your country is alive and that all the others aren’t.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>12.</strong>
</p><p>The first time you step onto the USS Maryanne, you’re overcome with a sense of pride and ownership and awe.</p><p>Even if you think it could stand a different name, it’s still the best of all ten vessels built for the mission.</p><p>And even if you have no love for Dr. Ulyanov, you can still admit it’s a feat that it was his mind that made this mission happen.</p><p>“It’s all amazing, isn’t it?” you say to him once before you think better of it. “What we’re doing here?”</p><p>Ulyanov doesn’t smile back. </p><p>“Amazing?” he repeats. “I think it’s tragic.”</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>06.</strong>
</p><p>Your teachers tell you that hard work wins out, so you work hard.</p><p>They tell you that respecting the law means you’ll never be troubled, so you follow all the rules.</p><p>They tell you that this is the greatest country on Earth and that there’s no greater proof than the fact that it’s the only country left, so you’re proud to be an American and proud to wear the uniform you’re assigned as a cadet in service to your country.</p><p>They tell you you’ll go far so long as you obey, so your successes are never a surprise, only inevitable.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>03.</strong>
</p><p>“Don’t stare,” your father hisses the first time you see one of them. </p><p>The words are accompanied by a pinch on the shoulder that has you flinching. Your head jerks down, looking away from the man walking into the building as you walk out. His face too broad, hair too dark, cheeks too prominent to fit in. His uniform so glaringly red that it’s obscene.</p><p>“Men like that aren’t to be bothered with,” your father says later, at home. “They may have helped us win the war, but they’re all snakes, understand?”</p><p>You nod. You understand.</p><p>You remember, too. Always.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>14.</strong>
</p><p>Waking from cryosleep is cold, but painless. It hardly feels like it’s been eight hours, much less a dozen years.</p><p>Getting out of the ship to explore your new world is one of the most exciting things you’ve ever done and knowing that it is your world only makes the excitement sharper. Better. Like savoring a meal that will last.</p><p>Only Dr. Ulyanov dares to approach you. </p><p>“What will you name it?” he asks, but he sounds bored. Uninterested.</p><p>“Victory,” you say, because it’s fitting. Being here – it’s victorious.</p><p>To your surprise, Ulyanov laughs.</p><p>And he walks away, still laughing.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>04.</strong>
</p><p>The only time in your life you ever see your father cry is when you’re accepted into the academy. </p><p>It’s the only time he ever hugs you, too, his arms wrapping around you so suddenly while your own arms hang limply at your sides. </p><p>You can feel the heat of him as he holds you. You can feel his body shaking from his sobs. His beard scratches against your cheek and you have never hated anything more than you do this. </p><p>You resent him for his weakness then resent yourself for your disrespect.</p><p>But not enough to hug him back.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>10.</strong>
</p><p>Your first time meeting General Hull has you giddy, but you’re good at hiding it. You’ve been trained to be good at it. At being a good solider. It’s that training that has brought you here, up through the ranks to meet the man in charge of it all.</p><p>Shaking his hand sends a jolt through you. It’s visceral and sharp.</p><p>When he tells you about the reason you’ve been called to the capitol, you can hardly believe it – but you do. </p><p>And when he makes his offer, it’s all you can do to keep the satisfaction off your face.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>16.</strong>
</p><p>Ulyanov doesn’t like you, you’d be a fool not to see it, but he’s never expressed it so bluntly as he does now.</p><p>He watches one of the breeding stock stumble out of the soldiers’ barracks, naked and dazed and filthy. He grimaces at the sight.</p><p>“Why do you allow it?”</p><p>“Allow what?”</p><p>“For your men to treat them that way.”</p><p>You look at the creature as she limps back to where all the breeders are kept.</p><p>“It’s what they’re for,” you say.</p><p>Ulyanov grimaces again.</p><p>“Is it?” he asks, his disgust obvious.</p><p>You look at him and don’t understand.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>05.</strong>
</p><p>The academy is harder than you thought it would be.</p><p>It’s an honor to be here, you know that. Only a handful of boys are chosen to be given the opportunity to become officers rather than just working men, but still – it’s hard.</p><p>The rules are much stricter than what you’re used to at home. The punishments are much more severe. The first week, you can’t even lie on your back because it’s been whipped so often that it’s a pain to put any pressure on it.</p><p>You bare the pain.</p><p>You live through it.</p><p>You know it’s worth it.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>17.</strong>
</p><p>There are things happening on Victory, so subtle that a less observant man might not have noticed but you observe and so you have.</p><p>It’s the way people look at you. Not your soldiers, who only ever stand at attention and give you the proper respect, but everyone else. The working staff, the civilians, and even the breeders. They eye you like caged animals. Glancing, secretive.</p><p>“Is anything going on?” you ask Ulyanov because he’s the closest thing you have to an equal here.</p><p>“What do you mean?” he replies, as blank faced as always.</p><p>You say nothing. </p><p>He leaves.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>11.</strong>
</p><p>The very thought of space travel has you excited in a way you can’t ever remember being, but it’s the thought of what awaits the end of your travel that excites you the most. </p><p>It’s an honor to be chosen at all, but to lead. </p><p>You, one of only ten others, selected to head a mission to an inhabitable planet. To colonize and populate it and lead your people into a new future. </p><p>Earth would die and those not chosen would die with it, but America would go on into space and it would grow into the reaches of eternity.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>07.</strong>
</p><p>“Do I have a mother?” you ask your father for the first and only time when you’re home from the academy for Christmas day.</p><p>Your father looks surprised at the question.</p><p>“Why would you ask me that?”</p><p>“My classmate, Bernard, he said that the red soldiers have mothers, too. I was wondering whether I might have one.”</p><p>Your father stares at you hard then looks away, frowning.</p><p>“You don’t have a mother, boy.”</p><p>“Oh.” A pause. “Do you?”</p><p>“...A long time ago,” his father concedes, “but not anymore.”</p><p>He goes quiet. </p><p>You watch him for awhile, then so do you.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>15.</strong>
</p><p>You oversee the workers building Victory and think this must be what General Hull feels like every day. The rush of power at knowing you’re the one in charge, the sense of accomplishment in seeing something being built from nothing because of your direction. </p><p>The people of your colony are obedient. They rarely give you cause to punish them. The soldiers do their duties well and so do the breeders.</p><p>You imagine Victory filled with children a year from now and feel pride swell within you at the thought of a new generation of Americans being raised in your shadow.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>09.</strong>
</p><p>You rise through the ranks of the academy quickly. </p><p>Other boys die off, too weak to make it through the arduous teachings, but you live. </p><p>You live through the beatings, through the screaming, through the whippings, and the starvation. </p><p>You live through the tests, the recitations of the pledge and the tenets of American society set forth all those years ago after the war when only America was left to set a new world order.</p><p>You live and you thrive and you’re grateful because when you finally graduate, it means you’re a part of it all.</p><p>It means you’ve won.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>18.</strong>
</p><p>“Are you happy?” Ulyanov asks you one day out of the blue.</p><p>You’re surprised by the question and by how intently he looks at you, waiting for you to answer.</p><p>“Happy?”</p><p>“Are you satisfied here, on this planet? Are you happy with how things are developing?”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I be? Everything is going according to plan. We’re meeting all of General Hull’s mandates.”</p><p>“And this satisfies you?” Ulyanov presses. “Making this world the same as the old one?”</p><p>“Of course. What else would it be?”</p><p>Ulyanov eyes you for a long moment, then sighs before turning his close attention away.</p><p> </p><p>– </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>19.</strong>
</p><p>You’re buried inside of a breeder when it happens. </p><p>It’s been a good day. The latest buildings have gone up ahead of schedule and you’re pleased enough that when Ulyanov suggests everyone have some time off to celebrate, you agree.</p><p>You pick the prettiest breeder, as is your right, and take her in a private room. She’s screaming so loudly beneath you that at first you don’t hear the screams coming from outside but when you do, you stop, head tilted, to listen.</p><p>You only see the silver head of a hammer before your head explodes in pain – then nothing.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>12.</strong>
</p><p>You have plenty of medals and pins on your uniform by the time you’re chosen to lead the USS Maryanne, but you’ll always favor one above all others.</p><p>The first one you ever received, the small American flag that every cadet gets at age six when he’s accepted to the academy.</p><p>Other medals were harder won, but this one you’ll always cherish because of what it stands for. Not just America itself, but your beginning in it. The first step you took into becoming what any American can be if only he works hard enough.</p><p>Just like you always did.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>21.</strong>
</p><p>You wake up in pain, surrounded by the bodies of your soldiers on the ground, their blood soaking through the knees of your pants. </p><p>The sickle around your throat jerks. You choke. </p><p>You look up at Ulyanov. </p><p>Somehow you hate him even more for how bitter he looks. For how he can betray you and not even seem to be happy about it.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he tells you dispassionately, “but we didn’t leave the hell your people made on Earth just to make a new hell here.”</p><p>You try to speak, but the sickle pulls – </p><p>and you’re choking on blood.</p><p> </p><p>–</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>01.</strong>
</p><p>“This is the greatest country in the world,” your father tells you. “Do you know why?”</p><p>You shake your head. “Why?”</p><p>“Because we’re the last one left. Remember that, son – it’s the strong who survive. You can’t be weak. You can’t care about anything but yourself and doing what the men in charge tell you, because at the end of the day all that matters is the end. No matter what you have to do. Understand?”</p><p>You nod with all the solemnity a child can manage. </p><p>“I understand,” you tell your father.</p><p>You don’t then, not really.</p><p>But you will.</p>
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